After
by ArgentNoelle
Summary: Sherlock has returned to London after the Hiatus, but nobody knows that yet.


Disclaimer: Sherlock doesn't belong to me.

A/N: this is just my thought of how the Return might have/will gone/go. I don't think this is how it will actually happen in the series, since three years would probably be too long...and this is Sherlock's thoughts, not mine. Ok, that sounds a bit weird... I'll stop explaining now.

* * *

It was raining the day he came back to London. Strange, he thought, it had started to rain right after he jumped, hadn't it? He almost felt as though no time had passed, as though everything would be just the same as he had remembered it. And yet it was not true. The world hadn't been raining for him, waiting until he came back. Things would be different, and all the incongruous new details of a city he had once known every detail of stood out to him, alien. Only _he_ was the alien now. It was like coming back home after a long time gone to find that someone had moved things around; that it wasn't yours anymore, and the proof of that ownership was subtle but unmistakable. It had passed out of his hands.

In his mind palace the city was just as it had been three years ago, when he left; haphazardly sprinkled in with news that stood like letters, but the city was the same. He didn't need to update it; his palace (his city) would work better if it was the one he'd known for years. But he should update the map.

Change, he knew, would crawl into his mind every time he looked at something different, it would shape the city in his mind, his mind-palace, whether he would or no. But he was procrastinating now; putting off the place he should have gone to first thing. Not Mycroft—yes, he'd gone there, but that wasn't it. In the three years since what they termed the Reichenbach Fall (he was _not_ amused by the wordplay) he had come to an uneasy truce with his brother, since he ran out of money and had to tell his brother he was alive. That had been priceless—imagining the look on his face, the look of pure surprise—but then things fell apart; they always did. Well, at least he had convinced his brother not to tell John.

John… John, and Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade. As long as any of Moriarty's organization lived they were kept alive only by their ignorance. They could not know Sherlock Holmes was alive.

Molly knew, but Jim had underestimated her, as Sherlock had. And that had been his mistake, Sherlock admitted. If it hadn't been for Molly, he would have died, because he would not let the three people he cared for in the world (and his only friend) be killed. He didn't want to die, but his life was not so special to him that he would keep it for that price. No. The hardest thing had been his reputation. John was right, when he said Sherlock cared if people thought he was right. He had spent his whole career trying to prove he was better than anyone else. Having to admit that he was a fraud was harder than actually dying would have been. But he needed to, because otherwise, his fancy scheme would be for nothing, they would die.

He would not let that happen.

He reflected in amusement that if he had a fatal flaw, it was that he cared for someone. Who would have guessed? Moriarty had no fatal flaws, and yet it was he who was dead.

His steps had been taking him closer to Baker Street as he thought, and now he found himself looking through the windows. There was no light, the flat was empty, all his things packed away in boxes. It was empty because Mycroft paid the rent for two ghosts.

John had moved out, not long after Sherlock died, though he still visited Mrs. Hudson. He had gotten a full-time job as a doctor and even, two years ago, married Sarah, the girl who had been a pawn in the case John had titled 'The Blind Banker.' He approved of that. John should have kept her in the first place, she was smarter and braver and _kinder_ than any of the others had been. She was good, like John. She fit him. They had broken up after the case, when they were kidnapped, and he could hardly blame her, but shortly after Sherlock died she had come to John. Mycroft said she had helped him through a lot. That was why Sherlock had rested a little easier those long years away, knowing John was not alone.

But Sarah had died recently, and John was alone again. Sherlock had to come home. And yet he couldn't, not until every last of Moriarty's criminals had been sent to jail, and especially his inner circle. Now there was only one. Only one, _and_ he had just murdered a man. Only one, and he could reveal to John that he was alive. One last case.

He was afraid though. It wasn't a type of fear he'd ever felt before, it was fear that John would take one look at him and close the door in his face, fear that he had finally gone too far and John wouldn't want him back, whatever his reasons. John wouldn't want a logical excuse; he would say 'you _could_ have told me…you told Molly.' And Sherlock would not explain himself; no, John didn't need to know of those three years. He had been protecting his friend, and he would keep protecting him, even if John never wanted to see him again. In fact, he would say nothing beyond the bare facts, and he definitely wouldn't reveal Molly's part in the plan.

But still, the image of John leaving haunted him. He'd only left once, when he'd finally learned Sherlock wasn't a hero. Surely this would only serve to show more his inhumanity, that he could leave his best and only friend grieving for three years, with not even a hint? And was it really that impossible to give one? Why had he been so cautious? Was it true, had he wanted to get away from it all? Even John?

Especially John. Because John, like Lestrade, was a good man. Too good for Sherlock, because one day Sherlock would disappoint him and he would look at him the way he had that day and this time, he wouldn't change his mind.

He would see Sherlock as he really was.

.

.


End file.
